Perfect Game College Baseball Top 25
PHOENIX – A little more than nine months have passed since it was announced that Tracy Smith would become the fifth head baseball coach in program history at Arizona State University. The announcement came not long after Tim Esmay resigned after five years in Tempe, and on the heels of a 2014 season that ended with two losses in the NCAA Division I Regionals and a sub-par 33-24 overall record.
ASU Vice President for University Athletics Ray Anderson stepped up to the microphone during Smith’s introductory press conference on June 26, and told a large gathering of local and national media why he was so thrilled to have convinced Smith to pull up his Indiana roots and take up residence in the beautiful Valley of the Sun.
“His accomplishments and accolades on the field speak for themselves, and his career has been defined by class, dignity and integrity,” Anderson said that day. “He will be a great fit within the ASU family, our baseball community and our current student-athletes, and we can’t wait for the new era of Sun Devil Baseball to begin under Tracy’s guidance.”
Now, just over nine months later, that new era is in full swing and the vibes surrounding the premier Pacific-12 Conference program couldn’t be any more positive. The Sun Devils are playing extremely well and have risen to No. 8 in the Perfect Game National College Top 25 Rankings.
And most importantly, Smith and his and wife Jaime have settled-in and, as Anderson predicted, have already become great fits within the ASU community.
“The first three or four months were just a whirlwind, trying to catch up and meet people,” Smith told PG during a recent conversation. “There are days that go by now – my wife and I were just talking about it the other day – when we look around and go, ‘We’re in Arizona. What are we doing?’ So from an overall perspective it’s just been kind of surreal, but we love it here.”
The 49-year-old Smith arrived at ASU with 18 years of head coaching experience at the D-I level. He spent nine years building the program at Miami University (Ohio), his alma mater, and the next nine establishing the University of Indiana as the top program in the Big Ten. The Sun Devils’ program was in no way in need of a rebuild, just a shot in the arm.
“This is my third time taking over a program, and these guys have really bought-in to what we’re selling very quickly, so it’s been fun from that perspective,” Smith said. “We don’t feel like we’re fighting a lot of outside stuff.”
The Sun Devils traveled to Salt Lake City this past weekend for a three-game, Pac-12 series with Utah, and left having taken 2-of-3 from the Utes. It was their fourth straight Pac-12 series victory – second on the road – and their records improved to 21-8 overall and 9-3 in the league going into Tuesday night’s non-conference game against UNLV in Las Vegas.
The wins have not come easy but speak volumes about the Devils’ fortitude. They are 10-4 in one-run games, 4-0 in extra-inning games, have won six games when trailing after six innings and thrilled fans with four walk-off wins at home.
It’s a veteran group that is hitting .293 as a team and averaging 5.5 runs per game. Junior Johnny Sewald, batting leadoff, is hitting .312 with a .437 on-base percentage, and has team-highs of 26 runs scored and 15 stolen bases. Junior RJ Ybarra and sophomore Brian Serven each have four home runs and 15 RBI; sophomore Colby Woodmansee is hitting .308 with three home runs and a team-high 22 RBI, and sophomore David Greer leads the team at .375 with 17 RBI.
The pitching staff has compiled a team ERA of 3.23 over 265 innings, led by junior left-handed starter Ryan Kellogg (5-1, 3.56 ERA) and junior right-handed closer Ryan Burr (5-0, 10 saves, 0.76 ERA). All of those players were very active with PG while in high school, and everyone on the team, from the position players to the pitchers, has responded to the message Smith is conveying.
“The guys have really bought into the philosophies he’s brought from Indiana and the whole coaching staff really made it an easy transition,” Kellogg told PG. “I think the team was ready for a change – things went pretty well with (former head coach Tim) Esmay and we liked having him as a coach – but we realized there was a change at hand and we had to deal with it; the guys bought-in right away.”
PG had the opportunity to speak with Smith and a couple of his players on the night of March 27 not long after the Sun Devils had delivered a walk-off, 7-6, victory over Stanford, the first win in what would turn out to be a three-game series sweep of the Cardinal.
It was an absolutely incredible evening, with a temperature in the low-70s and more than 4,000 maroon-and-gold clad fans nestled comfortably into their stadium seats at the beautifully refurbished Phoenix Municipal Stadium, the Sun Devils’ new home this season.
It would be hard to imagine a more perfect setting for big-time college baseball. On this particular day, Indiana track and field coach Ron Helmer had arrived in the desert to visit his good buddy Smith, and Smith had given him a tour of the stadium and the practice facilities. Helmer’s only comment, according to Smith, was “This is big-time.”
“This is just a really, really cool environment,” Smith said. “ASU does an excellent job with the game experience, and we did our job tonight by getting a hard win to keep the fans coming back. It’s just a great situation.”
Truth be told, Smith left a pretty good situation at Indiana, where he was twice named the Big Ten Coach of the Year. He spent the first six years of his tenure in Bloomington making the Hoosiers relevant within the Big Ten and his final three years making them relevant on the national level.
In 2013, they won the Big Ten tournament and the Bloomington Regional before beating host Florida State in the Tallahassee Super Regional. That, in turn, led to a trip to the College World Series in Omaha, the first in school history; they finished the season 49-16. In 2014, they won both the Big Ten regular season and tournament titles but lost to Stanford in their own Bloomington Regional; they finished 44-15.
At the conclusion of the 2014 season it could be stated with confidence that the Indiana baseball program had arrived and Smith was the guy engineering the train. Success at the national level never goes unnoticed, and the folks in Tempe knew they would be remiss if they didn’t at least attempt to convince Smith and his family that a move to the Valley was worth their consideration.
“It was very difficult on all different levels,” Smith said of leaving his Indiana home. “From a personal level – my wife’s family is from near there, my family’s from all around Indianapolis – but also from a professional level because (Indiana athletics director) Fred Glass treated me very, very well. They made it difficult to leave – it was fun to work there – but at the end of the day it came down to if you’re a baseball guy, where would you rather be.
“I’ve always been one to kind of challenge myself and this is a very, very challenging environment,” he continued. “I felt like we’d done some really, really cool things at Indiana and it was time for a new challenge.”
Based on the success the Indiana program enjoyed over the past two seasons, in particular, it came as no surprise that Smith chose to bring most of his Hoosiers staff with him to Tempe. They include assistant coach/recruiting coordinator Ben Greenspan, 30-year veteran assistant coach Fred Nori – who with Smith at both Indiana and Miami (Ohio) – and pitching coach Brandon Higelin.
“I’m fortunate to get to work with a great coach in Tracy Smith,” Higelin told PG. “He doesn’t let the little things go; he pays attention to detail in every aspect of the job. Because of that, he’s getting the players to kind of buy into that and do the same thing, and lets the players hold themselves accountable.
“It brings out the best in players and allows them to take control of the team. … I think we’re going to hit our stride, and I think our best baseball is still yet to be played.”
Smith and his staff are also finding out that the recruiting landscape in Arizona differs from the one in Indiana, although recruiting is still hard work.
ASU’s Tempe campus is surrounded by prospects that can play the game the year around if they choose to, and with Perfect Game holding numerous elite tournament and showcase events in the Valley during the summer, fall and winter months, out-of-state prospects also regularly flood the Valley.
But Smith is quick to point out he was able to attract some pretty darn good prospects to both Indiana and Miami (Ohio), and even the players that were not necessarily highly regarded when they entered college developed into prospects under Smith’s guidance.
In 18 years as a D-I head coach, Smith has had 54 of his players drafted, including 22 in the first 10 rounds. The Chicago Cubs took Indiana left fielder/catcher Kyle Schwarber with the fourth overall pick in the 2014 MLB June Amateur Draft.
“I don’t want to say it’s easier (at ASU) because it’s all relative, but where it’s different is that here you’ll get the calls kind of out of the blue that such-and-such player has narrowed his choices down but ASU has always been his dream school,” Smith said. “You’re in the door with every kid that you talk to and I’ll give the credit to all the coaches that were here before me because they are the ones that established this great reputation.”
This year’s group of Sun Devils are eager to reestablish that reputation, starting this spring. ASU hasn’t been to Omaha since 2010 and hasn’t won a national championship since 1981. Five other Pac-12 schools have won eight CWS championships since the Sun Devils last wore the crown, including arch-rival Arizona in 1986 and 2012.
“(Smith’s) philosophies are something that are going to turn this program around,” the closer Burr told PG. “We have all the confidence in the world in Coach Smith and we’re just excited to play for him. He’s a great guy and every kid on the team would take a bullet for him; that’s the kind of camaraderie that we have.”
The book on this year’s Sun Devils’ team is far from written. They still have home conference series remaining with Arizona, league-leader and No. 6-ranked UCLA and Washington State, and must go on the road for series against Washington, California and No. 12 Southern California. There are several non-conference games sprinkled among those Pac-12 games, as well, all leading up to the start of NCAA Regional play on May 29.
It’s all there in front of them, ripe for the picking. And if the Sun Devils are able to accomplish everything they hope to this season, they’ll do it by marching in line behind their leader from Indiana.
“I talk to my wife a lot about this, and I’ve told her we’re going to do this,” Smith said. “I’m not going to change who I am – I’m going to be Tracy Smith from the small town of Kentland in Indiana – and it’s either good enough or it’s not.
“I’m a confident person and I think it’s going to be good enough, but I’m not going to take myself too seriously,” he concluded. “I’m lucky to be here, lucky to work with great assistants and great players, and I don’t take it for granted; I just keep an even keel.”